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Owing to the current ongoing situation, the DTCA 2020 AGM which had been booked for the end of June, cannot now take place. We will have to try and reschedule for later in the year once matters are clearer.

Production of the DTCA special edition Omnisport model has been postponed.

This is one of my favorite Dinky Toys ever -- a very accurate model, lots of "play value," opening features that do not ruin the lines, and just late enough to avoid being afflicted with the Spot On-induced 1/42nd scale elephantaisis.

Jacques, when you ask about the American issue, I assume you are still wondering if any Brinks Trucks were cast in the U.S.A. Unfortunately American collectors were unable to obtain definitive information about this at the time, and there isn't any years later. However, I would state with a certainty of 99.9 percent that -- following a renewed request from the Brinks company -- these models were ordered from and produced by Binns Road, and only packaged at AVA in the U.S.

This is similar to how AVA ordered and packaged special runs of the Pontiac USA police car and the VW/Porsche 914, which had been discontinued by Liverpool despite the fact that they were best sellers in America. AVA also ordered and packaged the small-scale Star Trek Enterprise and Klingon Battle Cruiser, shipping them to stores in trade boxes that were prominently labeled "Dinky Toys -- AVA, Hewitt, Texas".

I am attaching some pictures of the Dinky Brinks Trucks, including my sample of the first issue that I have had since childhood.

The initial issue seems to have come in the horrible "Visi Pac" boxes -- were there any other kind? The second issue is the Brinks promotional, with a brighter blue base, dark gray doors, black wheels, and plastic "super duty" tires. These came either in a picture box or, less commonly, a white box with the Brinks logo on it. This first promotional seems pretty common today, but I don't think they were sold in U.S. stores -- I obtained my sample from a retired Brinks guard.

The third issue is the Mexican one in overall gray, now without the crates of "gold" or the driver and passenger figures. It has plastic tires and wheels that unfortunately react with one another, leading to deformation. I obtained my sample directly from Mexico, from the son of the man who ordered the toys. Therefore, worthy of note is the decal identifying the Pan American Protection Company on the side; most or all of these that turn up for auction in the U.K. have only the main winged horse decal, suggesting that perhaps the fiddly smaller decals were applied once the models arrived in Mexico.

The Mexican model came in a plain white end-flap box. Also worth noting: Many lists seem to call this the "Luis R. Picaso" version, but this is a misnomer. Luis R. Picaso Manriquez was the official at the Pan American Protection Company who ordered the toys from Binns Road, but the model itself should be called the "Pan Americano" van. (PanAmericano is still very much in operation as a Brinks subsidiary.)

As for the final 1979 issue, it's worth noting that the roof is painted white, while the body is gray -- but the effort of making the model two-tone was mostly wasted, since the two colors chosen are hard to distinguish. This version saw limited distribution in shops, with the U.S.-printed box conforming to then-current Dinky style, and was also distributed by Brinks in the same white boxes as their earlier promo.

Looking at my early and 1979 versions I note that not only did the crates disappear, but also the driver and passenger. The tinted green windows of the first one obscures the driver and passenger but they can clearly be seen through the side doors.

The second type you mention seems to come in a conventional Dinky card picture box rather than a promotional box?

Incidentally there is now a nice Brinks truck in the Brazilian Vehicles of Service partwork.

I mentioned that the Mexican version no longer had the crates or the driver/passenger, but of course, as you note, they did not make a return in 1979 either.

The second version, i.e. the first promotional, came either in a standard picture box or a white box supplied by Brinks. Apparently despite my having seen mostly Visi-Pac boxes for the first version, it came in the picture box too -- here's one with the remains of a toy store price tag on it.

An excellent description of this peculiar model. I am glad for the information about the mexican issue.

One can wander why Meccano choose to issue an american armoured car rather than an English one such as Brink's, Securior or any other build on a British van. Brink's may have odered Meccano to issue the G.M.C. and probably paid for part of the tooling as this has been done for some other Dinky Toys models.

The Dinky 275 had two official names, it has first been issued as : "Brinks Armoured car" without an apostrophe at Brink's and later as Brinks truck" still without the apostrophe. This is confirmed by the names printed on the boxes.

The first box was the yellow end flaps box

followed by the early 1964 type Visi-Pac or was this the first box and the end flaps box the second one ?

then came the hanging box. Where they two different types ? One type was aparently printed in the States with at the rear a subscription form for the Dinky Toys Club of America. But was there a British version with a different rear side ? A picture of such a box will be welcomed.

Although we have no documentation on the matter, I'm confident that Brink's asked Dinky to produce the model, and paid for the tooling -- hence the American prototype. Certainly Brink's was also responsible for the 1979 reissue.

In one of his sadly few Binns Road Gazettes, Keith Harvie documented another example of Binns Road being paid for a model, in the case of the Tractor-Trailer McLean. The McLean trucking company in the U.S. paid for the tooling, though they did not get their way when it came to having the trailer chrome-plated.

It's interesting that in the case of the Brink's Truck and the Tractor-Trailer McLean, both cabs are clearly based on GMC vehicles, though not acknowledged as such. I don't know if Dinky would have had to seek permission or pay a license fee to General Motors back in those simpler days, but if so they obviously ducked out of doing so in these two instances.

I believe the Visi-Pac box was the first type for this model, but wasn't there a period when Meccano Ltd. foisted these horrible things on the U.S. market, while at the same time supplying end flap boxes for the UK?

Finally, Jacques raises an excellent question about the last hanging box. Was there a different UK version? Indeed, was this model sold in UK shops at all?

Here in the U.S. I never saw the Brink's truck sold in a "normal" fashion with the rest of the Dinky range at all. Instead, it was the rarest of about a dozen models that were sold off after Meccano Ltd. and U.S. Airfix (Airfix having purchased AVA) died. They showed up at "half price" for a brief period in various toy stores that, in some cases, had never sold Dinky Toys before.

I wonder if there was some artistic license in the Dinky Brink’s model. It appears from the front to be the medium duty truck but has the stance more of the pick up chassis base - perhaps the two real Brinks’ designs were fused into one?

The GMC McLean was like that in the 1958 Cannonball TV series. Chrome plating of a plastic trailer would have been short lived. As a child my father brought home at Christmas chromed ships and other things given away by market leaders in the art Corocraft, but the coating easily came off in play.

Corgi made a Ford "Express Service" tractor-trailer model that had chromed plastic doors, at the very least. I don't know how well they hold up. Looking up examples of the McLean prototype, I can certainly see why they would have liked the model to have a shiny trailer.

Sorry for the topic drift -- obviously, we need to create a thread for the McLean. (The history of the trucking company itself and the model are both very interesting!)

No, of course there was no earlier hanging box -- but the question remains, was the last 1979 version sold in Britain, and if so, did it have the U.S. printed box (with the DInky Club of America ad!) or a different one?